Italian Yesterdays, vol. 2

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

After that, King Louis rode away with all his army from Aversa to Naples, being met on the way by a large deputation of nobles and citizens of whom he took no notice, refusing to acknowledge their greeting or to ride beneath a canopy they had provided for his entry into the capital. On arriving in Naples the King at once gave himself up to the work of vengeance. The first to die was Donna Cancia, who, ever since the death of the other regicides, had been lying in prison; she was burned alive in the Mercato. Soon after Cancia’s death the King ordered the arrest of the Count of Squillace, Godfrey of Mansano, promising to spare him if he would deliver up one of his relations, a certain Conrad of Catanzaro, accused of having been among those privy to the murder of Andrew. To this infamy Squillace consented, saving his life by betraying Conrad to the Hungarian authorities, who had him broken alive, as is related, upon a wheel studded with razor-blades,—but I incline to doubt this for more reasons than one. But, instead of assuaging the rage of King Louis, these monstrous executions seem only to have filled him with a further appetite for blood. As during the usurpation of power by Charles of Durazzo after King Andrew’s murder, so now executions multiplied to such an extent that they threatened soon to become the principal medium of government; just as, four centuries and a half later, in the time of suppression of 1799, there set in an epidemic of frantic denunciation, the general terror making of society a hot-bed of the basest passions and motives—avarice, cowardice, and hate. And soon the people began to think how they might rid them of the ghastly incubus that had come to prey upon them in the person of the vampire-monarch from Hungary.

CHAPTER XIV END OF JOAN’S CAREER

Joan Detained at Aix—Greeted as a Queen—Joan Pronounced Innocent—Plans to Regain Naples—Sale of a City—Return to Naples—Indecisive War—Proposal for Personal Conflict—Flight of the Royal Family—Maria’s Narrow Escape—Hungarians Repulsed—Pope Clement as Intermediary—Departure of the King of Hungary—Festivity in Naples—Death of Louis and Joan’s Further Marital Adventures—Joan in Trouble—Her Untimely End.

In those days of the King of Hungary’s assize in Naples, Queen Joan reached her county of Provence and began to travel across it from Nice, where she had landed, towards Avignon.

On coming to the town of Aix, however, to her astonishment and perplexity, her journey was interrupted by the townspeople, who, albeit they received her with every mark of respect, yet set a guard about the castle of the place, the Château d’Arnaud, in which she stayed; and refused to let her issue thence until, as they said, they should have had word from Avignon—but in regard to what matter they would not tell her at once. Only after two months had gone by did the Archbishop of Aix present himself before her with an explanation. It appeared that, at the very moment of Joan’s landing in Provence, news had been brought to Aix that the King of France had sent his son, the Duke of Normandy, to Avignon to negotiate with Joan as to the cession of Provence to the French Crown in exchange for a proportionate territory elsewhere; so that, on seeing Joan arrive thus timely in their midst, the people of Aix imagined, not unnaturally, that her presence among them must be connected with the negotiations in question. And, as they were determined to die to the last man rather than pass under the detested rule of the French, they had resolved, if need be, to keep the Queen a hostage among them, in order to prevent her from carrying on the dreaded negotiations. Having however, and to their great thankfulness, received from the Sovereign Pontiff himself an absolute denial of any such purpose of negotiation, they at once and with many apologies restored the Queen to liberty.

On leaving Avignon, what was her delight on seeing the beloved Louis of Taranto come out to meet her, accompanied by all the Cardinals then in attendance upon the Pope! Joan was now, indeed, greeted as a Queen by her people, who strewed the way with flowers, the while a number of mounted pages rode beside the royal pair, holding above them a canopy of crimson velvet; and, from every church the bells pealed out a welcome to the Sovereigns. In the castle they were received with all pomp and circumstance by the Holy Father, who embraced and blessed them; after which they took up their residence in the Ursuline convent; and a little later, to complete the gladness of Joan, her younger sister, Maria, now the mother of two baby girls, arrived at Avignon from the stricken city of Naples. After the death of her husband in the castle of Aversa, Maria, bearing her children in her arms, had taken refuge from the reprisals of the King of Hungary in the monastery of Santa Croce, where the monks took her in and fed and sheltered her during some days, although they knew that not only their lives but the existence of the monastery itself would fall a sacrifice to the Hungarian’s anger should he ever learn of their charity to the widow of Charles of Durazzo. At length she had contrived, thanks to the disguise of an old monastic gown, to embark with her babies upon a ship bound for Provence; and her account of the things that were being done by the Hungarian in Naples made both Joan and her husband long to get back there with an army behind them, that they, in their turn, might satisfy their vengeance.

About this time there arrived, too, at Avignon ambassadors from the King of Hungary to the Pope, demanding in no measured terms the formal condemnation of Joan as an accessory before the fact to the murder of her husband, and her deposition from the throne of Naples; and, most especially, that the Holy Father should give the kingdom instead to Louis of Hungary. And now the Pope appointed a day for Joan on which to plead her cause before him and to disprove the charges made against her if she could; and this she did so ably that those who heard her broke into loud applause, and the Pope pronounced her innocent before all the world, and the Hungarian envoys were compelled to go away empty—although, to this day, there are those who have their doubts as to the veracity of Joan’s denial of the sin imputed to her. At any rate, Pope Clement, who was a good and truth-loving Pontiff, believed her, and there is an end of it.

After the discomfiture of the Hungarians, the Pope confirmed the marriage of the Queen to her cousin, Louis of Taranto, and bestowed upon the latter the title of King of Naples and of Jerusalem; he had already, on March 27, given him the Golden Rose. Simultaneously, the Holy Father sent an apostolic legate, Cardinal de Boulogne, to the King of Hungary, at Naples, to persuade him to cede the kingdom peaceably to its rightful sovereigns.

While the Cardinal was engaged on this difficult task, Nicholas Acciajuoli betook himself, likewise, into Naples and set about raising an army wherewith to drive out the Hungarians in the event of their refusing to listen to the Cardinal’s arguments. But, to maintain such an army, great expenses were unavoidable; and the Queen, who had sent him in answer to a deputation of Neapolitans entreating her to return and rule over them, was now obliged to raise money by every means at her disposal. For this purpose she sold all her jewels; but, these proving insufficient, she begged the Pope to buy of her the city of Avignon. To this he consented, and on June 19, 1348, gave her for it a sum about equal to sixty thousand pounds of our money. Which amply disproves the statement made by Alexandre Dumas,[12] who says that the sale took place on the day immediately prior to Joan’s trial, suggesting as he does that the Pope’s decision was influenced by his eagerness to acquire possession of the city—for the trial was held almost at once after Joan’s arrival at Avignon, on March 15.

In the meantime the King of Hungary had declined to accede to the Pope’s instance that he should retire from Naples to his own kingdom; and so there was nothing left for Joan and Louis of Taranto to do but to dispossess him at the sword’s point. Thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Acciajuoli—and, in perhaps even greater measure, to the misrule of the Hungarian himself—matters were now ripe for an armed intervention in Naples, where every strong place had surrendered to the enemy, with the glorious exception of the castle of Melfi, of which Lorenzo Acciajuoli, the son of Nicholas, was the commander. From Melfi, where he had conferred with his son, Nicholas Acciajuoli travelled throughout the country, crying the Queen’s acquittal and the confirmation of her union with Louis of Taranto and proclaiming far and wide the great indulgences and blessings promised by the Pope to all who should submit themselves to their lawful rulers, Queen Joan and her consort, King Louis. And, finding himself everywhere greeted with tumultuous declamations of loyalty towards Joan and of detestation of the Hungarian, Acciajuoli returned to the Queen at Avignon with the news that she might safely entrust her cause to her own people.